Over the past three years, women from seven of Himachal Pradesh’s 12 districts have been handcrafting a variety of home products while contributing to improving the State’s fragile forest ecosystem. They turn the highly flammable leaves of the chir pine, which often exacerbate forest fires, into baskets, pen stands, serving trays, mirror edging, jewellery boxes, and more.
The project, called ‘Improvement of Himachal Pradesh Forest Ecosystems Management and Livelihoods’, is meant to increase income as well as conserve biodiversity. It was started by the Himachal Pradesh Forest Department in collaboration with the Japan International Cooperation Agency (JICA), which works to strengthen capabilities in emerging countries. Women self-help groups (SHG) are provided with working capital and a revolving fund, with skill training and market linkages provided to the members.
Sunita Sharma, 43, who heads the Radhe Krishana SHG in Ghanahati village, Shimla, said the women, who have always been silent and unseen when they worked at home or in the field, now feel more empowered with the social connections they have formed and the additional boost to the family income. “Before, we often worked alone. Now, we come together as a community and there is strength in numbers,” Ms. Sharma said.
“In 2020, I got associated with JICA, which was a turning point,” she said, adding that, earlier, she could only make bread baskets from pine needles, selling them locally for a relatively low profit. “After I was trained by the experts at JICA, along with seven other women in the village, we have been producing about 18 different articles from pine needles.”
Pine needles are collected from the forest floor, then boiled in water with glycerine to create a shine. They are dried in the shade and then woven. Apart from the cost of the thread, there is no additional material cost. However, it’s a time-consuming process, and one product may take between one day to up to a week to craft. “A pen stand is sold at around ₹400, while a bread basket fetches us anywhere between ₹500-800, depending on the size,” Ms. Sharma said.
The leaves of the semi-evergreen chir pine (Pinus roxburghii), one of the five species of pine found in Himachal Pradesh, are highly combustible due to the presence of resin in them. The State has about 1,23,885 hectares of area covered with chir pine forests. According to a government estimate, about 1.2 tonnes of chir pine needles are shed per hectare annually.
The project is being implemented in the districts of Bilaspur, Shimla, Mandi, Kullu, Kinnaur, and Lahaul and Spiti. The products created by the women SHGs are sold at fairs and exhibitions. “Moreover, the Forest and Tourism Departments stay in touch with us and place orders. We pool the products for collective sale by the group. The income of a group member varies between ₹10,000 and ₹50,000 per month. Last year, at the Sale of Articles of Rural Artisans Society (SARAS) fair held at Shimla, we sold items worth ₹45,000 in a few days,” Meena Sharma, secretary of the Radhe Krishna SHG, said. She added that people appreciate that the products are eco-friendly and handmade.
Forest fires are a major factor in the degradation of forests in Himachal Pradesh and Uttarakhand. In the past, the Forest Department adopted a number of methods to prevent forest fires, including deployment of fire watchers, creation and maintenance of fire lines, involvement of local communities to douse fires, and the use of remote sensing, but incidents of forest fires have not decreased significantly.
Experiments have been conducted on using pine needles in other ways. “Universities and institutes tried them as fuel in cement factories, and as pine needle boards, biofuel, and pine needle charcoal, but these failed to sustain after the pilot projects,” Nagesh Kumar Guleria, Additional Principal Conservator of Forests cum Chief Project Director, JICA, said.
Mr. Guleria’s team is now working on a mechanical device to weave pine needles into ropes which can be used to create products. “This will help us meet bulk demand, increase efficiency and reduce the cost of production, ensuring higher returns to the group members,” he said.
